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Creative Arts
David Appleby
The First Stand, Mr. Appleby’s latest film, has just been given the Peabody Award, electronic media’s
highest honor, analogous to a Pulitzer Prize. It is the story of one of the earliest,
most important, and least remembered school integration battles in the south, one
that set up the 1957 confrontation in Little Rock. It was aired nationally on PBS
in February and has won a CINE Golden Eagle, the Award of Merit from the University
Film and Video Association (their highest award in a juried competition), and an EMMY
for Best Writing.
At the River I Stand, produced in cooperation with his fellow faculty members Alison
Graham and Steven Ross, was nominated for both an EMMY and an NAACP Image Award. It
also won a CINE Golden Eagle as well as Outstanding Historical Documentary Award at
the Sinking Creek Film Festival. The most prestigious academic honor was from the
Organization of American Historians, which gave the film its Eric Barnouw Award for
best historical film or television program of the year.
“David’s body of work encompasses traditional documentaries, sponsored films, and
dramatic narratives. He is truly a renaissance filmmaker. He moves with ease both
among genres as well as between the various roles of writer, producer, director, and
cinematographer,” wrote one reviewer.
In the words of another reviewer, Appleby is “a filmmaker whose visual talent and
distinctive perspectives on complex issues permeate every project he undertakes. .
. Simply put, his elegant personal style emerges from a deep understanding of his
subjects, and is inseparable from this understanding.”
His work has helped make the University of Memphis one of the few academic institutions
creating films that are able to compete, in quality and scope, with the nation’s major
production houses.
Mr. Appleby, who has been at the University of Memphis since 1977, earned his MFA
at Temple University in 1979 and is a Professor of Communication. His list of awards
goes back to 1980 and occupies almost a full page of his curriculum vitae.
Congratulations, PROFESSOR APPLEBY.
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